To look upon your face
by ceolwen
Summary: Something untoward happens in the House of Black and White. Something ridiculous. One-shot. Fluffy. Lemony. Short.


_A/N: This was just kicking around. A thought-bubble, if you will. _

The House of Black and White was ill-equipped to deal with what the Many-Faced God had bestowed upon them, if indeed it was He who bestowed this dubious gift upon them. Even the kindly man was out of sorts.

Umma was the only one who didn't tie herself into knots at the rather untoward situation that had befallen the House. But everyone, Umma included, agreed that the pair could not stay within the temple; they needed to step out into Braavos and find accommodations and assistance and deal with the matter. Or just take a ship somewhere.

This whole thing was simply unheard of. In a place that manufactured poisons, which could take care of this improbable occurrence, it was almost...deliberate.

The man and the woman left. For a time, they promised. Just for a time, they would cease their duties as acolytes of the Many-Faced God.

They took a house in Braavos: a house that faced the Titan. Salt and barnacles coated the piles that flanked the water-door.

And within that house, swathed in loose gossamer fabric pushed up above her knees, a woman sat on a low stool, legs apart. She was an interesting-looking woman. Wiry and muscular, she swore like a sailor. Her face was contorted.

Our faces are honest in our greatest pain.

* * *

Outside that room, a man waited, leaning against the wall.

A man waited, and recollected.

One time:

_Her slim figure laying beside his. A sheen of sweat covering them both. It was the hottest month. They lay on the pallet, her head on his arm. She sipped from a goblet containing a clear liquid, in which small green leaves were floating._

_'A man is so thirsty,' he rasped, his hand moving to clutch his throat. His tongue licked at his lips. His hair was short, his skin was dark-brown, burnished. His ears were ever so slightly pointed._

_But for one arching eyebrow, she ignored him, taking a long and pointed sip from the goblet. And another. And another._

_'Please,' he implored her. She sipped again and turned to him, pressing her lips to his. His mouth opened, and she poured the cool liquid, not yet warm from her mouth, into his._

_He took her, ferociously and quickly. She began to wail underneath him._

_'Please!' She cried, the sound wrenched from her lips: half-scream, half-sigh,._

_He obliged her, knocking the goblet over in the process._

Another time: the first.

_She was a bold angry thing, looking only half-grown despite her age. He'd found her in her room below the temple. He put on his first and handsomest face, which turned out not to matter, and slipped into her room. It was dark. They were both blind. He put his hand over her mouth, which awakened her. He smiled, a noisy smile._

_'Jaqen,' she breathed onto his palm._

_'Jaqen H'ghar is dead, but a man has come, lovely girl.'_

_She surprised him, lifting her face to his and kissing his mouth. Their teeth bumped and she hissed in pain. He got into the narrow bed with her, lying on top of her. Feeling the bony-slim length of her; her shoulder, the side of her slim hip, her thigh._

_She parted her legs, slightly, and he stroked the soft skin there, between her knees, his thumb stroking upwards, ever upwards._

_When he entered her, he was surprised at her slick wetness, and how easily he glided into her. A brief moment of pain; her soft 'Aaahhh,' exhalation, and he was inside her. Filling her. A moment's pause, and then he began an unimaginably gentle rhythm. She made little noises, deep in her throat. He bent his lips to hers, kissing her gently, softly. His hair fell over her face and she imagined that the white hairs were slightly cooler than the red as she brushed it back with her fingers._

And another time:

_It wasn't that she was angry. It was just that her whole being radiated nervous energy. He bent to each of her vertebrae, nuzzling, licking his way down her back and back up again, focusing his attentive tongue on her sensitive neck. Whatever face she wore, her neck was the thing. He softly turned her over, but she was having none of that, flipping them so that he was on his back, flat on the ground. She ground herself against him. He winced in pain._

_'Sorry!' she said, her golden hair surrounding her like a halo. She eased his pain, positioning him at her entrance. She inched downward until he was inside her, whole and entire. He caressed her breasts. She rocked against him. He came, his hands on her hips. Too soon! Too soon!_

_He spent the night making it up to her._

* * *

Who knows which time it was? There were a thousand, he thought as he waited outside as he'd been told he must.

She screamed. The pain was becoming more intense than she could deal with. He burst in, ready to slaughter her attendants if they'd done something to her.

Two of the women supported her on either side, and a third woman knelt beneath her, imploring her to push.

She was sweating.

'A man wonders why a woman is perspiring so. What would you like to tell him?' His voice was soft and dangerous.

'It's normal,' she wailed. 'The screaming. The sweating. The pushing. It's all normal.'

'AAAAGGGGGHHHHHH,' she cried, her back bowing. He came up to her and supported her from behind, nearly knocked over by her strength, as she pushed as hard as she could.

'I see its head, milady! It's crowning,' the kneeling midwife cried. 'Just a few more pushes, and it'll be over.'

She pushed in earnest, her face a mask of pain. He began to sweat. The baby fell out of her and into the midwife's waiting arms. A gush, a huge wave of fluid and blood followed, drenching everything.

He had never been so shocked in all his life. His face. And hers. Some of each, though mostly, he thought, the baby looked more like he had, once.

'Did I really have to go this far?' she asked, spent. He looked at her, quizzically.

She smiled at him. 'To find out what you really looked like.'


End file.
